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Tag Archives: Olympic

In my effort to get back to blogging, I figured I’d at least include one race report. I might go back and write race reports from races earlier in the summer but frankly, I’m not sure I really want to. We’ll see.

Going in to this race I had no expectations. My coach and I discussed my race plan, which was pretty much: Swim as hard as you can, bike as hard as you can, see what you can do with the run. I think I executed that race plan fairly successfully J

So… on to the race recap!

Swim: 39:19

I am a wimp when it comes to wearing my wet suit. I will flat out NOT wear my wetsuit if the water temp is 70 or above. I partially chose this race many months ago because I figured there was no way that the water temp could be below 70. Thankfully I was correct, water temp was 75 and was wetsuit legal. I of course opted to not wear my wetsuit.

So let’s talk about the actual swim. Boy was the water shallow. People were wading in water up to their thighs all the way to the first buoy. I tried to swim but I found it incredibly hard because my hands kept touching the bottom and everyone else was walking in water ahead of me. Other than the shallowness of the water, I think I handled the swim quite well. It was definitely not my best swim and halfway through the swim I honestly thought that I wasn’t going to come anywhere close to my goal of breaking 40 minutes. Well, to my surprise that shallow water came back to haunt us again after the last turn buoy. The last 100 meters of the swim were incredibly hard to actually swim so most of us (including me) just ended up trudging through the water. Good news, despite my swim fears, I broke 40 minutes.

T1: 4:22.1

Whyyyyyyyy did they have to include a ¼ mile run from the swim to transition?

Bike: 1:34.50

This bike. Amazing. The bike course was a combination of the Rev3 Williamsburg Olympic Course and the old Challenge Williamsburg bike course so it was very familiar. There were some rolling hills in the beginning and the end and then one “big hill” in the middle going over the Chickahominy River (this is the same bridge that bookends the Rev3 Williamsburg bike course), but otherwise it was mostly flat or at least “false flat.” My plan going into the bike was to just crank it and leave nothing on the course. I had SO MUCH FUN on this bike. For the first time in a long time I felt like I was flying. I looked at my Garmin a few times during the bike and saw some impressive numbers but felt like I was going to completely blow it if I kept looking. So I just went for it. Not only did I post my best Olympic Distance bike time EVER, I also averaged 14.8 mph which is significantly higher than any bike I’ve done this year. Yay me! So… on to T2 and the run.

T2: 2:45.8

Definitely not my fastest T2 time but I did need to get my legs together after the bike I just pounded out.

Run: 1:31:25

So my goal for the race was to go all out on the bike and then see how much time I had left for the run. My hope was to post a fast bike, which would ultimately give me more time to finish the run. When I came out of T2 I glanced at my watch to see exactly how much time I had to do this run. I can’t remember what the exact time was when I first glanced but after some quick math based on my run times from the rest of the season, I had a comfortable 15-minute window to finish under 4 hours. There’s not much to say about this run other than I loved the course. Some of the run was on a paved path, some of it was a dirt trail in the woods. There may have also been some running in a parking lot but it wasn’t that much. I do remember there being a ton of twists and turns and I thought that I was lost at one point as well.

On my way back to the finish line, all the 70.3 athletes were starting their runs. It was fun being able to not feel like I was the last one on the course due to those runners just starting their runs. I crossed the finish line was immediately elated because I KNEW I broke 4 hours, I just didn’t know by how much. My PR up until this point was 4:00.32 so I as hoping for any sort of PR. Imagine my surprise when I looked at my Garmin to determine my overall time.

TOTAL TIME: 3:52:42

For those of you counting, that is an 8 MINUTE PR! After the crap season I had this year and the lack of training, I had wanted to end the season on a good note and I did. SO HAPPY.

So that’s a wrap on the 2017 triathlon season. Even with all the bad races, I learned a bunch about myself so not all is lost. I look forward to the off-season where I can build my endurance and go into the 2018 season with a bang! And of course, thank you to the Virginia Maryland Triathlon Series (VTSMTS) for putting on a phenomenal race as always.

It’s been a struggle the past few weeks with injuries so I was rather scared (see also: petrified, anxious, nervous as hell) of what would happen during this race. Up until the Saturday before the race, my ankle was still rather swollen and all of my runs were awkward and felt bad. I bought myself an ankle brace from CVS that seemed to work pretty well for fitting in my shoe and not inhibiting movement too much. So, for race day I was just going to try.

Bike is all racked and ready for the morning

My coach had originally told me to do the aquabike and then go on a short run afterwards but I decided to not listen and go for it (turns out it actually wasn’t a completely stupid idea). My plan of attack for the race was go all out on the swim and bike and then see what I could handle for the run, after all if pushed it for the first 2 parts than I could in theory walk/shuffle the 6.2 mile run and hopefully finish in a decent amount of time.

This was my first time doing this specific race as last year this race was branded as a Challenge race and had a different course. Other than the fact that this race was located in a completely different area of Williamsburg than last year, the bike was also longer (okay by only 2 more miles but still…. longer)

So where does that put me? Let’s take a look

Sunrise over transition

Swim: 29:15

Honestly, for the time that I got on the swim it felt awful. I didn’t feel like I was going fast at all despite the current that was very much apparent. It also didn’t help that someone earlier in the race got tangled in a turn buoy and pulled it loose causing the rouge buoy to go floating off randomly. Sighting on a moving target is not as fun or easy as you might think. I came out of the water rather disappointed with my swim performance but didn’t even bother looking at my watch to see what the time was. Overall my swim was 10 minutes faster than my swim last year but I’m going to chalk that up to water current (and maybe only slightly a little bit of faster swimming by me).

T1: 3:14

Okay so my T1 time seems to be getting better. Last year it took me 5+ minutes for this transition, which could be because of the long ass run from the water to transition, but this year I didn’t run at all from the water to my bike due to my ankle being wonky and I wasn’t wearing a brace.

On to the bike!

Bike: 1:52.29

I am actually quite happy with my bike. Despite the fact that I felt like I was SOOOOOO behind because I never saw that many people, I felt like I pushed it hard (at least for me). I even passed a few people (for me this is a big deal). This was my first race with my TT bike so that was a lot of fun as well. The only disappointing part was that something in the way I was sitting on my saddle caused my ass to hurt in a way I’d never felt before. More on that later. My bike at least years race was 2 minutes faster however it was also 2 miles shorter. I’ll take it.

T2: 3:17

Looking at my T2 times for most of my races, this is fairly consistent of a time. It was faster than last years T2 time and I even had to spend some time this go around putting on my ankle brace.

And on to the run we go

Run: 1:41.05

Well as I stated earlier, my plan was to push it on the bike and the swim and see what I could do with the run. And well, the run sucked. Honestly, I walked most of it with a few spurts of running here and there. I really thought my ankle was going to make this run super difficult but it did a lot better than I had thought. Now, it definitely hurt and running was so uncomfortable, but I managed. Here is the fun part…. I did this run faster than last year. And last year I “tried” running more. Last year was also like 800 degrees warmer than this year but still, I literally walked for most of this part of the course and I finished faster than last year. I’ve been working on keeping my ankle happy lately and it’s feeling better so I am excited to see what I can do for the run soon.

Total Time: 4:09.33

Yes, I am really damn slow. I know it. I have done races faster than this but here are a few positives.

I actually finished the race

I finished this course FASTER than I did last year

I finished the race on a 2 week old injury that is only getting better and therefore I am getting faster.

So all in all, I am not entirely disappointed in this race. Seeing as my original plan was just to see if I could make it through the course, I am happy that I finished.

Thank you Rev3 Triathlon for an amazing race experience! Not only did you treat me well but you also treated the DC Tri Club well (and let’s be honest, that matters a lot to me). It was a great race experience and I definitely will be back next year.

The medal

What next? We’ve got 9 weeks till Augusta 70.3 and a whole lot of miles between now and then. Thankfully I think I can do this and am going to kick my own butt getting ready.